The Team

Professor Martin Utley

Director of the unit, Martin joined CORU in 1996 having gained a PhD in high-energy physics. Martin has experience of working on a wide variety of problems in health and health care, spanning many clinical areas. Actively involved in all of CORU's current research, he is committed to assisting those planning, delivering or evaluating health services by developing, adapting and applying operational research techniques. Martin also acts as scientific advisor to the National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death (NCEPOD) and is editor of the journal Operations Research for Health Care.

Dr Christina Pagel

Christina has a background in both mathematics and physics, gaining her PhD in space physics. After 3 years as a post-doctoral physicist in Boston, she decided to make the transition into operational research applied to health care and joined CORU in 2005. In 2008, Christina was promoted to the position of Senior Research Fellow and in 2013 became a lecturer in Operational Research as a joint post between CORU and the UCL Department of Applied Health Research. She has worked on a variety of projects including: capacity planning in both community and secondary care settings, risk models for surgical outcomes, modelling to inform decisions on the national immunisation programme, trial analysis, modelling to inform decisions about interventions in Asia and Africa to help maternal and child health and service improvement projects within hospitals. She is currently working on projects relating to congenital heart disease in children, paediatric intensive care and analyses to support hospital-led improvement projects.

Dr Sonya Crowe

Sonya has a background in physics, gaining her
PhD in experimental condensed matter physics in 2005. Before joining CORU, she
worked for the Government Operational Research Service as a senior OR analyst
at the Department of Health. Since joining CORU in 2009, she has worked on
projects relating to a variety of areas, including: health protection policy,
clinical risk models, the use of bridging technologies within child heart
transplant programmes, newborn care practices in rural south east Asia and malnutrition
prevalence estimates. She is now a Health Foundation Improvement Science
Fellow, using OR to explore ways of improving outcomes
for infants once they’ve returned home after cardiac surgery. During the
fellowship, Sonya will be studying the role that OR plays in the complex
decision-making process of designing a better service.

Professor Steve Gallivan

Steve has been active in operational research for over 30 years and served as Director of CORU between 1995 and 2007, devoting his time since then to a variety of research projects. With a PhD in pure mathematics, he started his OR career in traffic engineering before transferring his skills to health. He has over 200 publications and is always looking for new ways of using mathematics in useful applications. In 2009, Steve was awarded the Harold Lardner prize by the Canadian Operational Research Society.

Professor Tom Treasure

Tom joined CORU following a long and successful career as a cardio-thoracic surgeon, during which he collaborated with CORU on research of mutual interest. In his honorary role, Tom contributes his considerable knowledge and clinical experience to ongoing projects concerning outcomes following surgery and hospital acquired infections, as well as conducting his own research regarding the evidence base for thoracic surgery.

Mr Tom Pape

Tom is an embedded operational researcher at UCL Hospital, aligned with the NIHR CLAHRC North Thames collaboration. He joined CORU in 2014 after having obtained a master’s in management science from another London university. His particular interest lies in discrete optimisation and decision analysis.

Dr Luca Grieco

Following his MSc degree in Industrial Engineering obtained in 2008, Luca spent five years in the field of Systems Biology, during which he got his PhD in "Genomics and Bioinformatics". In 2014 he joined CORU where his current work is focused on supporting emergency planning policy, on the evaluation of flu vaccination programmes, and on the study of long-term outcomes in infants suffering from congenital heart diseases.

Dr Andrew Wilshere

Andrew joined UCL in May 2014 as Research Manager to CORU, and as project manager for a study in the Department of Applied Health Research (DAHR). Andrew previously worked at the University of Manchester as a research administrator and co-ordinator in a range of academic and clinical environments. He also holds a PhD from the University of Manchester in the philosophy of ethics and rights, and remains active as a researcher in this area.

Mr Chris Sherlaw-Johnson

With an academic background in mathematics and operational research, Chris spent many years at CORU working on a variety of projects. Now leading a team within the surveillance division of the Care Quality Commission, Chris retains active research links with CORU in areas of mutual interest and is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow within the unit.